The New Strategy for Raising Money for Kids: Just Ask Voters

December 13, 2016 J.B. WOGAN Governing

Amid Donald Trump’s largely unexpected victory on Election Day,
it was easy to miss an emerging trend in local elections: In
about a dozen communities around the country, voters approved tax
hikes for children’s services and measures that will keep
policymakers from dipping into those funds for other purposes.

Some places have had a dedicated children’s fund, which legally
can’t be spent on anything else, since the 1990s. But the funds
are becoming increasingly common.

“It’s definitely a budding movement,” said Elizabeth Gaines, a
senior fellow at the Forum for Youth Investment, a research and
advocacy group in Washington, D.C.

The measures passed in November will help fund a wide range of
programs, from youth homelessness prevention to preschool to
foster care. They passed in cities and counties on the East and
West Coasts (Baltimore, Oakland, Calif.; San Francisco) and in
several Midwestern localities, such as Cincinnati and Jackson
County, Mo.